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About the Authors

David L. Paletz

David L. Paletz is a professor of political science at Duke University. He has been director of Duke’s Film/Video/Digital Program and for six years editor of the journal Political Communication. His degrees are all from the University of California, Los Angeles. Paletz specializes in American government and politics (defined broadly to include the foundations, public, institutions, and processes) and political communication (defined broadly to include both news and entertainment). Among the courses he has relished teaching are American Government, Politics and the Media in the U.S., Film and Politics, Documentary Film, and Politics and the Libido. He is the author of The Media in American Politics: Contents and Consequences, 3rd ed. (forthcoming from Longman) and coauthor of Media Power Politics (Free Press, 1983) and Politics in Public Service Advertising on Television (Praeger, 1977). He is the editor of and a contributor to Political Communication in Action (Hampton Press, 1996) and Political Communication Research, vols. I and II (Ablex, 1987 and 1996); he is a coeditor and contributor to Business as Usual (Hampton Press, 2003), Glasnost and After: Media and Change in Eastern/Central Europe (Hampton Press, 1995), Taken by Storm: Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War (University of Chicago Press, 1994), and Terrorism and the Media (Sage, 1992). He is author of some sixty other publications. He has been chair of the Political Communication Research Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research and chair of the Political Communication Section of the American Political Science Association. Among his research and teaching awards are a Congressional Fellowship from the American Political Science Association, a Humanities Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, two Fulbright Scholarships, and the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award from Duke University.

Diana Owen

Diana Owen is an associate professor of political science and director of American Studies at Georgetown University and teaches in the Communication, Culture, and Technology graduate program. She is a graduate of George Washington University and received her doctorate in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Owen has been an American Political Science Association Congressional Media Fellow. She is the author, with Richard Davis, of New Media and American Politics (Oxford, 1998) and Media Messages in American Presidential Elections (Greenwood, 1991). She is a coeditor of The Internet and Politics: Citizens, Voters, and Activists (Routledge, 2006) with Sarah Oates and Rachel Gibson; she is a coeditor of Making a Difference: The Internet and Elections in Comparative Perspective (Lexington, 2009) with Richard Davis, Stephen Ward, and David Taras. She has published in numerous scholarly journal articles and book chapters in the areas of American government, mass political behavior, political communication, media and politics, political socialization, civic education, and elections and voting behavior. Her most recent work focuses on digital media in American elections and the intersection of civic education and political engagement. She is grateful for the support of her husband of thirty years, Jeffrey, and her cat, Rocky.

Timothy E. Cook

Timothy E. Cook (1954–2006) was a political scientist who held the Kevin P. Reilly, Sr., Chair of Political Communication at Louisiana State University from 2001 after twenty years as a professor at Williams College. He was the first occupant of the Laurence Lombard Chair at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and was a visiting professor of public policy at the Kennedy School. Cook was an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, which afforded him the opportunity to study the internal workings of Congress as a participant observer. He made lasting contributions in the fields of American government and media and politics. He is the author of the landmark works Making News and Making Laws: Media Strategies in the House of Representatives (Brookings Institution Press, 1987) and Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution (University of Chicago, 1999 and 2005). Cook was a coauthor of Crosstalk: Citizens, Candidates, and the Media in a Presidential Campaign (University of Chicago Press, 1996). Both Governing with the News and Crosstalk were honored with the Doris Graber Award of the Political Communication Section of the American Political Science Association for the best book published in ten years. Cook also was the editor of Freeing the Presses: The First Amendment in Action (Louisiana State University Press, 2006). In addition to these works, Cook published journal articles and book chapters in the fields of legislative studies; presidential politics; elections and voting behavior; political communication; political socialization; and lesbian, gay, and bisexual politics. Cook was inducted into the Louisiana State University Manship School Hall of Fame in 2011. Cook passed away from brain cancer at the age of fifty-one. He is survived by his spouse, Jack Yeager, a professor of French at Louisiana State University.